A Treasure Hunt

I bought a number of toys for the summer that I have been saving up to give to the kids over the summer break. Today I decided to give them the treasure chest. Kayli helped out by designing a treasure hunt that went from the house to the backyard to the house to the frontyard back to the house and finally back out to the backyard to find the treasure chest in the sandbox. The boys had a blast looking for it and have been having a blast playing with it.


My New Lens

I’m loving this new lens! I just got it yesterday and haven’t had much time to play with it. Here’s a few shots I took yesterday afternoon with it:



School’s Out For Summer

Friday was the last day of school for this year. Aidan, Talia and Kayli all came home with great report cards. Talia and Kayli again made the honor roll. (Aidan’s grade doesn’t get letter grades this year and they aren’t eligible for the honor roll.)

This year both Talia and Kayli received the Dedicate Book Award.

And Kayli received the 500 Point Plaque Award.

We are very proud of all of them!

Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

I’m working on cleaning my desk and came across this recipe which I have been meaning to put in my blog for a while.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups Milk
2 1/4 cups Sugar
1/2 teapoon. Salt
2 1/2 cups Half and Half
1 1/2 tablespoons Vanilla Extract
5 Cups Whipping Cream

Directions:

Scald milk until bubbles for around edge. Remove from heat. Add sugar and salt. Stir until dissolved. Stir in half and half, vanilla and whipping cream. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Freeze as directed.

This recipe is for the 5 quart Rival Ice Cream Maker.

Look what the UPS guy just brought!

In the end amazon.com came through and I got the Wii Fit that I pre-ordered back in April. The amazon.com website still shows them as being sold out, so I have no idea where they came up with the ones they have been shipping as replacements for the ones that got lost. In any case, I’m thrilled to finally have it. I’m going to play with it tonight after I get the kids in bed.

Kayli fell out of the swing and knocked out her tooth!

Good thing it was a baby tooth!

I was in the house at the time playing with Falyn when Kayli runs in crying. She is holding her head and blood is coming out her mouth. Talia was outside with her, but was reading and facing the other direction. She said that Kayli was swinging and then she heard a big thump.

Kayli finally calms down long enough to tell use she fell out of the swing and hit the back of her head. When she hit her head, her top tooth bumped into the already loose bottom tooth and making it so loose that it just fell out when you touched it.

You can see in this picture where the tooth was that fell out.

Twins End Of the Year Preschool Picnic

The twins end of the year picnic for their preschool was today. They had a puppet show before the picnic that Jared and Riley boot enjoyed a lot. Falyn, however, was a bit scared of the puppets. The twins were sad that it was their last day there. They have grown so much this year in size, maturity and skills. At the beginning of the year, both of them could barely write their name. Now they can write it very well.

Here’s a picture taken the first day of school, it shows just how much they have grown!

Falyn has Hand Foot and Mouth Disease

Falyn developed these bumps on her knees yesterday. I showed them to my neighbor who told me she has Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. Her daughter Mary had the same symptoms and she took her to the doctor after being sent home from daycare. The doctor told her that is what she had, even though she had hardly any bumps on her hands, feet or mouth. Falyn and Mary also have bumps on their bottoms too. Apparently, this disease can manifest like this in small children. There is nothing you can do to treat it, except tylenol for fevers. Falyn has had no fever and has been running around like she is fine. It will take 7-10 days for the bumps to go away.

My Wii Fit Saga

Back in April, I pre-ordered a Wii Fit from amazon.com. I am a long time customer of amazon.com, dating back to when they only sold books and all orders came with a amazon.com bookmark. (Way back in 1995 or 1996.) I have pre-ordered books before and always got them on or before the release date. I had every confidence that I would get the same great service with the Wii Fit. On May 22, I got a noticed that my unit had shipped, exactly as they had promised. Everyday I checked the tracking date for the shipment and everyday it failed to move. In fact, UPS never received the package at all. I did some checking and found out that I was not the only person this happened to. It was not an isolated incident and it appears that an entire pallet of Wii Fits went missing. I contacted customer service via the email option and was told that they could do nothing till it was three days past the estimated arrival date.

After reading on one of the amazon.com forums that you needed to talk to a person using their call back feature and demand to speak to a manager to get a new one shipped to you, I did just that and was instantly called. I told her the story and then she put me on hold for a bit. She came back and said they were out of stock and she could cancel the order and I could order from one of their third party vendors. I told her there was no way I was ordering from a third party and paying twice as much for it and that I knew they had an entire pallet of Wii Fits and asked to talk to a manager. After being put on hold for about 10 minutes she comes back and says that all the supervisors are unavailable and that she has issued a replacement order and is there anything else she could help me with. I said no, thanked her and we both hung up. I checked the order and it said estimated shipment date was Aug. 4. From the amazon.com forum that I found out about all the other lost Wii Fits, I read that that had happened to others and then the unit shipped out a few days later. Yesterday I got a notice that mine had shipped out. I checked later last night and saw that it had actually moved out of Dallas and is scheduled for delivery on June 10. So, unless UPS losses it now, I should receive it on Tuesday. Lets hope it actually arrives this time.